


Writer's Block

by KivaEmber



Series: Wine Cellar [34]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Armchair Therapy, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Healthy Communication, Healthy Relationships, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Male!WoL - Freeform, Miqo'te!WoL - Freeform, Post-Stormblood, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 06:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14889743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KivaEmber/pseuds/KivaEmber
Summary: Aza threw down his pencil in disgust and declared, “I give up. I’m too stupid.”Or;Aza is terrible at writing, and Aymeric unfortunately discovers the reason why.





	Writer's Block

Aza threw down his pencil in disgust and declared, “I give up. I’m too stupid.”

Aymeric glanced over at him.

It was past midnight, the pair of them sequestered in Aymeric’s office at the Congregation. The window rattled in its frame, the glass stained white from snow, and a sharp, cutting draft swept over them. The blizzard had hit when Aza came to briefly report his success in culling the wolf population near Falcon’s Nest, and his partner decided to wait it out here. Something he was sorely regretting, judging by how he was curled up in the stiff-backed, wooden chair, Aymeric’s cloak wrapped around him like a blanket, and shivering minutely.

“You’re not stupid,” Aymeric said, shifting his gaze to the paper Aza had been writing on. It was an attempt at a report, he had suggested it absently to give his partner something to do since he knew he was practicing his writing, and he was beginning to realise that he may’ve been unfair. His partner’s handwriting was absolutely _appalling_ , and no matter how much he tilted his head and squinted, could barely make out what Aza had been trying to write.

“Is that Eorzean?” he asked, “Or Hingan?”

“Eorzean,” Aza muttered sullenly, tucking his chin close to his chest. He avoided Aymeric’s gaze with drooping ears, “It’s unreadable, isn’t it?”

Aymeric hesitated, but he wouldn’t lie. Aza wouldn’t appreciate it, “It is,” he admitted reluctantly, putting his own pencil down and tugging the paper closer to him. Closer, he could… vaguely recognise the blocky letters as Eorzean, but they were uneven, lopsided and messy, and that wasn’t getting into the poor grammar and spelling. It was like a child learning their letters had written this, and that was Aymeric being generous in his critique.

“Bluebird can already write well,” Aza said, his tone coloured with jealousy, “It’s only been a few months and she’s already better than me when learning from scratch.”

“People have different strengths and weaknesses,” Aymeric said, but it had been a poor comfort for Aza when his partner had begun this impulsive, self-imposed mission, and it was a poor comfort now. Honestly, Aymeric wasn’t sure how to help. It wasn’t that Aza was illiterate. No, Aza knew very well how to read and write. It was just the moment you put a pen or pencil in his hand, it was as if some sort of disconnect happened in his brain and everything he knew about the written language just died a quick, temporary death. Even these messy scribblings came about from Aza’s bull-headed, grim determination of bullying through the mental block.

Aza rubbed at his forehead with a grimace. He looked stressed, dark shadows under his eyes and tense lines pulling at his expression. Aymeric had a feeling it wasn’t just his struggles with the written language that was bothering him.

“I hate writing,” Aza muttered, “I hate it.”

Aymeric watched him carefully.

“Perhaps that’s why this isn’t going well,” he said, “Forcing yourself to do something you hate isn’t conductive to quick learning.”

Aza dropped his hand from his forehead, glowering at nothing for a long moment.

“I can’t unhate it, though,” he grumbled, “So, forcing myself is all I can do.”

Aymeric put the paper down, taking a moment to try and formulate the question he had been dying to ask. Aza’s block with writing wasn’t normal, and for his partner to abruptly decide to tackle his difficulty after what seemed to be _decades_ of avoiding it was… odd. He understood that Bluebird decided to rise out of her illiteracy to try and bolster Aza’s confidence – as surely, he could do better than an illiterate person starting from scratch? But it had backfired horribly, and Bluebird was now outpacing Aza, who was becoming angrier and more bitter the longer this went on.

He’d been supportive at first – Aza learning to improve his writing was something to encourage, right? – but now… now he was wondering if there was something he had missed about this.

“Aza,” he began very carefully, “Why do you want to improve your writing?”

Aza glanced at him, his expression becoming a little guarded, “Why not? I’m almost forty and can’t write a damn thing. I thought I should try to be half-decent at least.”

Aymeric stared at him for a moment, long enough that Aza’s gaze wavered and he began to fidget, “Please be honest with me, love.”

Aza groaned, “Aymeric, that’s _cheating_ …”

Aymeric said nothing. He merely waited.

His patience was rewarded. After a long, tense moment, Aza blew out a sharp, wavering breath, tugging the cloak up so it hid half his face behind it. He stared fixedly at the desk, his ears flicked back, and seemed to gather himself up before mumbling, “It’s a… a past thing.”

Musa, then.

Aymeric tapped a finger against the edge of the desk, aware that this was thorny ground he was stepping onto. Whilst Aza had laid everything bare after the ‘Dusk Vigil Nightmare’, as he called it, there was still a type of reluctant awkwardness to discuss it in depth. Aza had been ashamed, so ashamed, when he confessed to everything – Musa, his sister, his life afterwards – had been so certain that Aymeric would be disgusted and leave him. He called himself such terrible things, a monster, a murderer, an animal, a whore… that had been an emotionally draining, mentally exhausting talk, but Aymeric liked to think they were all the stronger after it.

There were days, though, where Aymeric would be stricken with how _unfair_ life has been to Aza. He was certain that if this ‘Musa’ still lived, he would have picked up his sword, travelled all the way to Kugane, and put the man into his grave himself and damn the legalities of it all. But Aza had dealt with that himself, even if Musa’s spectre continued to loom over him twenty years after his death. He knew it frustrated Aza. Knew that Aza, even now, was still working to purge whatever hold that despicable creature had over him – and despaired whenever he failed or struggled to do so.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” Aymeric asked him, keeping his tone very neutral. He learned quick that pressuring Aza for details was a short path to an argument but being too distant gave the impression that he just didn’t care. It was a fine line Aymeric had to walk, one he felt ill-equipped to deal with at times, but they had gotten better about it after a lot of stumbling and learning.

“I don’t know,” Aza mumbled. He began to chew on his fingernail, his ear flicking anxiously – the earring dangling from it jingled quietly, “You’ll think-” he paused, taking a breath before amending, “ _I think_ you’ll think it’s stupid.”

Thank Halone for Lucia, Aymeric thought. She has been doing good work with him recently, to modulate his language like that.

“I won’t think it stupid,” Aymeric told him solemnly, “You have my word.”

Aza shifted in his seat, finally peeking at him. He looked vulnerable, unsure – he always did whenever they touched these topics. The fact Aza trusted him enough to show this to him warmed him – but the topics always chilled him in equal measure. Aymeric thought he had known cruelty before, but Aza had revealed to him new depths of depravity that man can reach, and sometimes wished he had remained ignorant of it. Only sometimes, though. Aymeric despised the idea of living in blissful ignorance while Aza suffered from hiding this poisonous past.  

“He always made me write his letters,” Aza finally said. He never called Musa by name. He called him ‘he’, ‘him’, ‘that man’ – sometimes ‘Master’ unthinkingly. Aza never noticed when he did that, the way he said that word (soft, submissive, _fearful_ ) made a dark pit of anger throb deep behind Aymeric’s breast. He never brought it to Aza’s attention, though. Some instinct told him it would end poorly.

“In Hingan?” Aymeric asked when Aza lapsed into a tense quiet, gently trying to prompt him with something innocuous.

“Yeah, sometimes Eorzean,” Aza chewed his fingernail again – his fang caught the edge and broke the skin, blood beading to the surface, which he ignored. Aymeric’s fingers twitched with the urge to pull his hand away but knew better to touch him without permission during these moments, “I was bad at writing at first. Grew up in an isolated wood with just my Mom and- her. So, I only just about knew my letters… knew little and less about Hingan. He would laugh at me a lot, when I first started. He found it amusing. Cute. Would touch…me.”

Aza’s tone went a little flat, his gaze growing distant.

“But then he got annoyed, because I wasn’t learning fast enough. He’d say I was stupid, some savage idiot animal only good for one thing, and even then, I couldn’t do _that_ right.”

“Aza,” Aymeric said quietly, not wanting to hear more, “You don’t need to-”

“So, I got better,” Aza continued. He curled his fingers tight, pressing his lips against his knuckles as he mindlessly read the messy, scribbling words on the paper, “Because if he’s happy with me, then things would be better, right? But no, _Master’s_ never satisfied, no, no, no. ‘You did this wrong’, ‘you misspelt that’, ‘you stupid idiot’, ‘dumb animal’… but he’d be gentler the more I improved anyway, and I thought, maybe, if I became perfect at it, he’d just make me write letters. I’d just write letters all day, to his disgusting friends about disgusting things. I won’t have to do the other stuff. He’d stop hurting me. So, I kept trying.”

Aymeric could feel his fingernails digging right into his palms and forced himself to relax before Aza picked up on his tension. ‘I’m too stupid’, Aza had snapped at himself earlier – always called himself such derogatory things if he struggled to pick up on something. Aymeric never thought much on it, just believed it to be a harmless exclamation of frustration, but now… he wondered… he really didn’t want to wonder though.

“You were never perfect enough, were you?” Aymeric murmured.

“Never,” Aza said dully, “After. After… with Bluebird… they don’t write, out on the Steppes. Only certain people do. I didn’t have to, so I didn’t. Then I joined the mercenary outfit, and I only had to be able to sign my name and read. I didn’t have to write anymore, just do a stupid scribble for my name, but then…”

He made a short noise of frustration, “It’s such a stupid thing. Alphie asked me to write something, just, a short thing for something… I can’t even remember what. And I thought, well, it’s been a while, but I wrote so many fucking letters with _him_ I can probably do it in my sleep. Easy. But when I tried, I… I felt sick. I don’t know, I couldn’t. I kept thinking about _Master_. I kept… I tried, I really did, but I couldn’t do it,” he laughed, a thin, brittle noise, “Of all the _fucking_ things to trigger me, it was that. Trying to write something. Like, what the fuck? I had to get Crisp write it for me instead, because I was too cowardly and stupid to do it _myself_.”

Things made a horrible kind of sense, now. Aymeric took in Aza’s miserable, ashamed face and slowly reached his hand out, palm-up, flat against the table, a silent invitation.

“It’s not cowardice,” Aymeric murmured.

“It is,” Aza sniffed, and he reached out, taking Aymeric’s hand and clasping it tight. His palm was sweaty and his fingers trembling, but Aymeric ignored it, “Twenty years… twenty years and I’m still that, that weak, stupid boy terrified of _him_...”

“These things… linger,” Aymeric said, a bit lamely he felt. He could never fully understand how Aza felt, how these things sunk their claws deep into his psyche and stayed with him – but he desperately tried his best. While he knew many would turn their nose up, mutter ‘Dragon-Shock’ and think Aza a weak-minded craven, Aymeric knew different. He knew Aza was _strong_ , that despite the trauma and pain he endured, he still tried his best to push past it all and overcome it, to be a good man despite everything trying to make him harsh and cold and bitter. It was just that this was Aza fighting _himself_ , and it could never be to victory, just to a stalemate where he could live as normally as he could.

“No shit,” Aza muttered, but he looked amused – in a wry, bitter kind of way, “I feel like an idiot for getting upset over this.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Aymeric immediately countered, deciding there and then to never allow Aza to get away with calling himself that. If Musa called him that, to the point where Aza’s first instinct was to think himself as nothing more than a stupid idiot, a dumb animal, well, Aymeric was going to try very hard to train him out of that, “You’re brilliant.”

Aza looked away, “Aymeric…”

“You are,” he insisted stubbornly, “I won’t hear otherwise. You’re more intelligent than the majority of the House of Lords, at the very least.”

That succeeded in startling a short, wavering laugh out of Aza, “That sounds like a backhanded compliment.”

“Well,” Aymeric said with mock-sheepishness, “Considering Rations is _also_ more intelligent than the majority of the House of Lords…”

Aza laughed a little louder at that. He shook his head, lifting his free hand to wipe at his eyes. He still looked teary-eyed, still stressed and worn around the edges, but the dark blankness that had shadowed his eyes was gone at least.

“So, I’m about as smart as a War Chocobo, thanks,” Aza said wryly.

“I think Rations is delightfully bright.”

“Oh, she is. She’s the smartest girl I know,” Aza instantly said, unable to say a bad word about his beloved mount. He paused then, realising what Aymeric did, “Oh, you sneaky lil’…”

“You’re about as smart as her,” Aymeric said smugly, “And considering I think she is smarter than _myself_ …”

“Okay, I get it,” Aza huffed, but he was smiling.

Aymeric admired it for a moment, before reluctantly sobering, “Aza, I think you should stop trying to write.”

Aza’s smile instantly faded, and he looked down, “Why?”

“Because I think it’s doing more harm than good,” Aymeric told him gently, “You’re pushing yourself against something that you have a severe, negative association with. Have you spoken to Lucia about this?”

Aza squirmed in place. That was a no.

“Bring it up with her, let her discuss it with you,” Aymeric said, “No doubt she will plan out a method for you to overcome this block without you subjecting yourself to mental torture every time.”

For a moment, Aza looked like he was going to be stubborn. But then his shoulders slumped, his ears drooping in defeat, “Okay.”

“Thank you,” Aymeric murmured, relieved. He rubbed his thumb over Aza’s scarred knuckles, studied his partner’s drawn, exhausted face. He felt like a fool for being so slow to ask about this – he should have notice Aza’s struggle earlier. If this blizzard hadn’t hit, if Aymeric hadn’t been forced to sit with him and watch him try to write… how much longer would it have been until he noticed?

“I think we should try to brave the blizzard,” he murmured, noting how Aza was still shivering. His joints much be paining him terribly right now, and yet, Aza didn’t make a single complaint, “You feel up to that, love?”

“Yeah, I’m kind of sick of looking at paper,” Aza joked weakly, squeezing Aymeric’s hand tight, “I just want to curl up in a nice warm bed with you, handsome.”

“As do I,” he murmured, lifting Aza’s hand enough to kiss his knuckles, before reluctantly letting go.

In the end, this was all he could do, he realised grimly. He could not reach into the past and erase it, he could not kill men already long dead, and he could not wave a hand and have Aza overcome his pain with no effort. There was no physical enemy to help him fight, nothing to vanquish, all he could do was try to support him where he could, even if he struggled to understand, even if he felt helpless and ineffective.

It was all he could do. He just hoped it was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> They finally had some kind of talk holy shit. 
> 
> Anyway yeah I was actually writing a chapter for Ebb and Flow and switched to this instead bc i guess my brain is weird? It really wanted to address this??? i am v tired right now so that's probably why. Twelve hour work shifts just suck the soul right out of you ugh.


End file.
